Ivory poaching and the law of supply and demand

11.17.13

Ivory is valuable and this leads to poaching (which is another way of saying ‘seeking more supplies of rare ivory’).

So…

The US government had decided to reduce the global supply of ivory by destroying six tonnes of the stuff.

“These stockpiles of ivory fuel the demand,” said Dan Ashe, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, “We need to crush the stores of ivory worldwide.”

And when supply is reduced, what happens to prices and therefore the motive to secure new supplies?

Surely if they wanted to reduce the incentive to poach ivory, rather than crushing their stockpile, they should have flooded the market with it. But of course Dan Ashe and his ilk work for governments and thus know nothing of this ‘economics’ malarkey.

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